Just Harry

Part 5

Harry absentmindedly shouldered past the crowds of students in the cafeteria, aiming for their favorite lunch station. Malfoy fell automatically in step beside him, parting the crowd as if by magic. Harry had no idea how the prat managed it — he didn't think it was really magic, or they'd surely have had a visit from MACUSA by now — but still. Something in the way he carried himself, Harry supposed, studying Malfoy's graceful body.

"Potter!" Malfoy said, half-laughing. "Are you even listening to me?"

"Er," Harry said, suddenly realizing that he, in fact, was not. He felt his cheeks heating.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Never mind. It's best not to discuss classes during meals anyway — ruins the digestion."

Harry snorted. "Where did you hear that?"

"Pansy," Draco said, nose in the air. "Or possibly Blaise. Either way, I've never discussed classes during meals and I refuse to start now. Have you decided what you're having?"

Harry turned toward the counter, studying his options. Pizza sounded good, he thought, as the student preparing them pulled one out of the brick oven. The crust was blackened around the edges, just as he liked it, and the cheese oozed appealingly, but it had mushrooms.

He wrinkled his nose and turned to order one without mushrooms, only to find the pretty brunette at the counter blushing and giggling at Malfoy while completely ignoring everyone else.

Harry sighed. This was becoming an annoying pattern.

"Excuse me," he said, trying to catch her attention. She kept talking to Malfoy, twirling a strand of hair around her finger and biting her lip, and didn't once look in Harry's direction.

Harry rolled his eyes.

"Excuse me," he said again, shouldering Malfoy aside so he was in the girl's line of sight. "I'd like a pizza, please."

She glowered at him and took his order curtly, turning immediately back to Malfoy, who was still perusing the soup menu.

Harry resigned himself to waiting awkwardly beside Malfoy, ignoring the way the cashier kept shooting looks at him.

"She was hitting on you," he said, as they carried their food to their favorite table in the corner.

"Merlin," Malfoy said, "she was not." He jostled Harry with his shoulder, tray tipping precariously. His soup sloshed perilously close to the lip of his bowl, and Harry was glad he'd opted for pizza.

"She was, too!" Harry said, laughing and dodging away from him. "Just like that guy in chem lab last week. Hang on! I think you need to hear Hermione's lecture."

"Which one?" Malfoy asked warily. Harry thought he was probably right to be wary, though he would never tell him so.

"Bisexuality Is A Thing, Harry. It was quite informative."

Malfoy snorted. "I'm sure it was."

"I'm serious, though. That girl—"

"I know it's a thing, you berk," he said, rolling his eyes. "It's just not my thing."

"No?" Harry asked, unconvinced. "I could have sworn you were checking out that cute bartender last night."

"Merlin, Potter," Malfoy said, setting his tray down with such force that soup slopped over the edge of his bowl.

Malfoy glanced around and then vanished the spill, poking just the tip of his wand out of his sleeve. Harry stepped between him and the rest of the cafeteria as he did so, hoping to minimizing the chance of anyone seeing it.

"You could have just used a napkin, you know," he said, exasperated.

"I have magic," Malfoy countered, "I may as well use it. No one noticed, Potter, stop worrying. And as to the flirting, must I spell it out for you? You stalked me for a year and still don't know this?" He sighed, shaking his head as if Harry were a hopeless case.

"I am gay. I like men, Potter. Only men."

Harry stared at him. "Oh," he said quietly, wide-eyed. For some reason, he'd not quite believed it. He wasn't sure why the confirmation left him feeling wrong-footed, but he felt as if any step might send him over the edge of a cliff. He had no idea what to do with the information he'd just been handed.

"Yes, oh." Malfoy sighed. "Now eat your pizza before it gets cold."

Harry thought Malfoy was eyeing him oddly as he ate, but Harry felt rather like he could never trust his observations again.

—

Harry lay in bed a few nights later, staring at the fairy lights twinkling gently on their ceiling and listening to Malfoy's even breathing across the room.

Malfoy's exasperated offhand comment had shaken Harry to his core. He realized this as he felt their comfortable routines shifting around him until he wasn't sure where he stood anymore, only that his obsession with Malfoy was coming back in a way uncomfortably like sixth-year. But instead of trying to figure out what Malfoy was doing, now he was just trying to figure out who Malfoy was. He was starting to edge closer to a realization that he tried desperately to shy away from. A realization that he was quite possibly falling for Malfoy. That he had maybe even fallen for Malfoy long ago, and had just never allowed himself to see it.

But now.

Now he scrutinized and over-analyzed their every conversation, Malfoy's every movement. The way he wrapped and unwrapped his scarf, the way he tipped his chair back on two legs and chewed on his pen when he was thinking. The way he lived his life by a series of inexplicable and endearing routines that he hardly ever wavered from. The way his every glance now sent shivers racing down Harry's spine, and his questions reduced him to a stammering, blushing mess.

He was doomed.

—

Malfoy, sensing Harry's weakness as quickly as he ever had, tormented him relentlessly.

"Potter," he said, as they pored over his chemistry notes one evening, "fetch me the highlighters, would you?"

Harry, who was comfortable, thank you very much, grabbed a wand and summoned them.

Only, he didn't pay attention to whose wand he grabbed, and didn't realize until too late that he'd grabbed Malfoy's. He wasn't even sure how Malfoy's wand had ended up so close to him.

He looked up to ask him, apologize, something, but was stopped by the strange light in Malfoy's eyes.

"It's very rude to touch another's wand, Potter. It's far too personal." His voice dropped on the last word, and Harry felt the hair on his arms stand on end. He muttered "Bathroom," and escaped.

He was beginning to suspect that Malfoy was engineering the charged moments just to fuck with him. He tried not to, because suspecting Malfoy of things was a habit he was trying very hard to break, but, still. It was suspicious.